Paint in the face? Powder up the nose? We're not playing around. This is fine freaking art.
WINNER: Bathroom Splash
So, I set up the camera in our bathroom on a tripod and used a remote to snap multiple photos while also being the subject. No fancy lighting, just the one light in the bathroom and the flash of the camera to bring out the water. My loving boyfriend is the one who had the sheer pleasure of "splashing"...or rather, launching jars of water colored with blue and red food dye at my face repeatedly. I chose this one because even though we used only blue and red dye, they mixed in such a way to make purple and pink...I even see a little orange and some indigo in there too. Camera is a Canon 60D, lense 18-135mm with the ISO set to 800.
- Mailani Souza
Ripe
This shot was partially inspired by Alice in Wonderland: Instead of painting white roses red, I thought I'd "ripen" an Apple from green to red... with paint. The setup was a bit complicated and required a bunch of experiments. For my work surface, I ended up using a step-stool with a removable white tray on top of the bathtub, that way I could quickly clean the paint after each round of shots (and contain the mess). As far as materials, I used red washable kids paint mixed with different amounts of water. It took a few tries (and cleanups) to find the perfect "splashy" consistency. Finally, I used Scrubbing Bubbles to remove all the paint from the tub. This was a life saver. Special thanks go to my friend Kirsten from mastering the art of pouring paint over an Apple. Canon T2i, 55mm, f/18, 1/200, forced flash. I used Aperture and Adobe Photoshop for editing.
- Diego Jiménez
A Single Tablespoon??
This is a tablespoon of powdered paint placed on top of a balloon...seven milliseconds after it the balloon was popped. The popping of the balloon was captured by the StopShot, which triggered the flash units (placed at 2, 5, and 11 o'clock).
Equipment: Canon 5DIII, Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS II, StopShot, 3x Yongnuo YN560II, EXIF: F16, ISO400, 1"
- Ryan Taylor
Drop
The first thing I thought of when I saw this Splash shooting challenge were images I had seen of drops of color into liquids, and I had always wanted to try it. This shooting challenge gave me the opportunity to. I learned a lot about my new prime lens in the process and hope to try this experiment again for different results and with different colors. Nikon D5100, 35mm, 1/40000sec, f/1.8, ISO 100
- Matthew Zarzeka
Pain(t)ball Portraits
This is from a series of "paintball portraits" that I'm currently working on. Based on classic Victorian portraiture, I start by firing paintballs to create the base and then finish the faces by hand. Then I photograph the finished piece while it's still wet to capture the texture. Shot with a Canon 5Dmk3 w/ 24-70mm @ f14, 1/100 sec.
- Shana Siegel
Thunk Clump
I was happy that at the end of the description for the color splash challenge it said "really try this," it made me want to go out of my way to do this. Chalk powder is apparently not too easy to find around here so I bought a package of chalk, blended it in a blender, and then baked it to remove the moisture (so it wouldn't clump). It still clumped up pretty badly. As this was my first time doing a powder shoot, and I don't have a studio, I went to a very helpful friend's apartment with a black poster board for a background and we used a sheet to catch the excess powder. By the end of the night the camera, apartment, and ourselves were covered in chalk but we had made some pretty cool images. Lit with two desklamps on chairs and the bright white bulbs from the Soft Box challenge, black tri-fold posterboard taped to a door for the background and shot on a Canon 400D with a kit 18-55mm on Aperture Priority mode, ISO 1600 @ f/22, 1/200sec and a Canon 430EX II speedlight on top. Edited in Photoshop with a NIK tone mapping plug in. I can't explain how chalky this was, but totally worth it.
- Jack Kelly
Chess Mani-Pedi
A glass chess piece with colored nail polish (both sparkled and non-sparkled). We thought it would be a decent idea since we didn't have any colored chalk to use (or a good place to throw it - it's been raining!). Taken with a Canon Rebel T3i with the kit lens (18-55mm) and a macro attachment. ISO 800, 1/30 shutter speed, f/5.6 and on manual mode. Just used white paper for the background (again, lacking materials and space).
- Clint Smith
Playing In The Dirt
I used my nephews and niece to attempt the challenge. I used a green screen. built earlier this year to have fun playing around with for silly composites. Originally, we tried to use water for the image. I ended up choosing an image of one of my nephew's with loose red soil from the surrounding desert being chucked at him by his sister (much to her satisfaction) . During the process of reviewing some of the images one nephew shouted, "We look like the Croods." So, here is the image of my litte caveboy nephew. Camera: Nikon D200, Lens: Nikkor; 55 - 200 mm f/4.0-5.6, Focal length 105mm, ISO 400, f/ 5.6 @ 1/250, Crop: aspect ratio 4:5, , Lighting: Ambient: open shade f/5.6 @ 1/250, Strobe: 2 Alienbees 1600, Key: above model (equal to ambient), Fill: directly in front; f/4
- James Carrillo
Orange and Blue
Christian (the model) is a very good friend of mine. We tried some pictures with powder in orange as you can see but I didn't get the shot I want. We didn't had so much orange powder so we started to try some photographs with blue powder. Meanwhile the sun goes down I must go for ISO 3200 because I still want to shoot with 1/320, to get the nice effect of the powder. In the end it work very well and we tried different backgrounds…We ended up with some nice brown wood. I use my Canon 6D with 24-105mm f/4, ISO 3200 and no flash or something else…
- A. Gottlob-Schoenenberg
Bacteria Swarm
For this week's photo challenge, I did a 'splash of color' with bacteria from a salmon's gill onto a SWC agar plate. They are fluorescent bacteria that produce light with luciferase. I took the picture with my Olympus E-PL1. f/5.5. 13 secs. ISO100.
- Lucas Lin
Sprinkle Rain
I had some really fun trial and error photos that came out of this. Originally, I really wanted to do something with water droplets or food coloring in water. Well, for some reason nothing turned out the way I wanted. So I looked around the house for something colorful that I might be able to use. I turned to a sensory box I made my 1yr old daughter. It's full of rice I colored with food dye. I didn't think it would give me anything better than my water ideas, but when I started pouring it in front of the camera, I realized I was wrong. I loved the way it looked! I admit, I enhanced the color and contrast a little bit, and I did crop my hand out of the picture, but I'm still pretty happy with the way this turned out! Canon Rebel XL, f/1.8, 1/200 sec, ISO-100, +2 step, 50mm, compulsory flash.
- Amanda Jaeger
You put some serious time into these—for both the photos and the cleanup. Thanks to everyone for doing something I'm sure they've never done before. This collection is superb. And if you'd like the big versions, they're over on flickr.